In large scale food processing ovens, it is desirable to regulate the temperature of the oven floor primarily to prevent fats, oils, and other cooking fluids which fall upon the oven floor from flaming or smoking, which may present a safety risk or result in unacceptable cooking quality. Methods of cooling an oven floor are known in the art. One method uses an oven floor formed as a heat exchanger plate through which water is pumped to absorb heat from the floor and remove it in the waste water.
There are many drawbacks associated with this type of system, and particularly the use of water to cool an oven floor. Normally, the plant water supply is used, resulting in plugging and fouling of the heat exchanger plates used as the floor of the oven due to the high mineral content of the water. Thus far, the solution to this problem has been to regularly halt operation of the oven in order to flush the heat exchanger plates with a chemical cleaning solution designed to remove these mineral deposits. In a continuous cooking operation, such down time lowers productivity. Further, the cleaning process may only remove a portion of the mineral deposits, finally requiring replacement of the heat exchanger plates or resulting in inefficient heat transfer.
Also, due to the relatively low boiling point of water, regulation of the temperature of the oven floor is maintained below the boiling point at approximately 190.degree. F.-200.degree. F. This low temperature is necessary to prevent the water from boiling, and to prevent steam build-up, which would render the system ineffective. However, maintaining the oven floor at this relatively low temperature has several drawbacks. First, it requires a high flow rate of water through the heat-exchanger plates. Depending on the type of oven, anywhere from four (4) to seven (7) gallons of water per minute must be pumped through the heat-exchanger plates in the prior art systems, which results in a waste of water. The prior art systems do not attempt to utilize the heat that has been absorbed by the water for any secondary uses, instead, the heated water is discarded.
Also known in the prior art are a variety of methods for cooling equipment or portions thereof in distinct environments such as high-temperature furnaces, reactors or the like, which are used in the melting or burning of materials. Some of such systems have also relied upon the circulation of water through a system for transfer of heat to the water, allowing heat to be removed from the system with the waste water. Heat exchangers are also used in a variety of other applications, but do not relate to an apparatus or methods to cool an oven floor of an industrial cooking oven used in a continuous cooking process to provide optimum cooking characteristics while preventing flare up or smoking of cooking debris.
Secondly, an oven floor temperature of 190.degree. F.-200.degree. F. unnecessarily cools the remainder of the oven. This temperature is also well below that required to prevent flaming or excessive smoking of grease or other food residue or particles. This results in the need to use more energy to maintain the proper cooking temperature inside the oven. Also, the relatively low floor temperature of the prior art systems resulted in the condensation, on the oven floor, of steam which may be used in the cooking process. This condensation also decreases oven efficiency.